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Detection & Attribution

Climate Change Detection and Attribution (기후변화 탐지 및 원인규명)

Understanding the causes of the observed climate change is fundamental to the reliable future projections of climate changes. In particular, quantifying human contribution to the observed climate changes at regional and local scales is challenging due mainly to the stronger influence of natural climate variability. Climate change ‘detection’ is defined as the process of demonstrating that an observed change is significantly different from natural internal variability, and ‘attribution’ means the process of isolation of the causes of the detected change. In order to identify human influences on climate in separation from natural factors, we compare the space-time patterns of observed changes with those from climate model simulations integrated under different forcings (such as man-made increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols, and natural changes in solar and volcanic activities) using a sophisticated statistical technique so-called ‘optical fingerprinting’.

[“Human-caused Indo-Pacific warm pool expansion” (Weller et al. 2016, Science Advances)]
[“Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes” (Min et al. 2011, Nature)]